الخطاط المُنفذ
The Executing Calligrapher program was held with support from the Ebdaa Men Masr initiative, Bank of Alexandria and the Goethe-Institut's Tahrir Lounge, from August 2019 to February 2020. The six-month program aimed to teach Arabic calligraphy to artists and craftspeople so they could integrate it into their artistic designs and handicraft products. Twenty-one artists and designers from different artistic backgrounds joined the program. They studied four Kufic scripts (Fatimid, Mushafi, Square/Geometric, and Mamluk), in addition to many artistic and craft workshops on traditional arts connected to Islamic art, and art tours of museums and mosques. They also attended a series of mentoring sessions with leading Arabic calligraphers under the title (Meet a Master), such as Khodeir El-Borsaidy, Mounir El-Shaarani, and others.
As part of Al Qalam's interest in building relationships with the surrounding community of Al-Khalifa residents, the artists of The Executing Calligrapher presented a series of 18 artistic and craft workshops as part of Al Qalam's winter camp for children and teenagers from Al-Khalifa aged 8 to 21, in cooperation with cultural institutions such as the Al-Hadara Library – the House of Egyptian Architecture (Beit El-Memar), and Beit El-Sennari.
Al Qalam held an exhibition for the program's graduates in October 2020 to display their artistic and craft works that combine Arabic calligraphy with one of the traditional crafts.
